The Village Voice on The Glenn Branca Ensemble

Feb

24

The Village Voice has a feature up on Glenn Branca where he talks about his new album, his long and varied musical career, and how he met his wife by selling her cyberpunk novels, among other things.

Branca has been getting it on since he cemented himself as a Soho staple in the late-’70s, artist-deluged, shithole-era downtown scene: feuding with the East Village No Wavers, schooling fellow guitar-orchestra guru Rhys Chatham, and ultimately subverting both conventional tunings and rock’s whole aesthetic with his 1981 classical-music-damaged, histrionic-rock masterpiece, The Ascension. It remains Branca’s most popular album, one that profusely bled yesteryear New York’s glossy lights and cruddy squalor—a combo original Ascension guitarist Lee Ranaldo undoubtedly took back to the Sonic Youth camp and built a 30-year career (and counting) template on.

Read the whole thing here.

The Glenn Branca Ensemble performs at LPR on February 27th. Get tickets here.

SHARE THIS